


Graveyard Surprises

by Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Slayer!Reader, Spike being the sad puppy he is, William!Spike, ensouled Spike - Freeform, season seven divergent, tortured soul Spike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:29:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27902272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89/pseuds/Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89
Summary: While on your nightly patrol, Spike drops by and changes everything.
Relationships: Spike (BtVS)/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	Graveyard Surprises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ANAELYSINS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANAELYSINS/gifts).



> written for anyfandomgoesbingo and Yas's 20th Birthday Bash (prompts in bold)  
> hope you all enjoy my first dip into the BtVS pool!

You looked around the section of the cemetery you were patrolling, hairs rising on the back of your neck as your Slayer senses picked up the sound of a twig snapping about twenty feet to your left, coming from a copse of trees at the perimeter. You drew your stake and tilted your head, your eyes scanning your surroundings for the source of your interruption. There, behind a particularly gnarled Redwood. You took your stance and watched, waited, for the subtle shift of the scrub you caught out of the corner of your eye to happen again. 

Five seconds later, it did. This time you caught the flash of black leather as your shadow moved. With a sigh, you relaxed your stance and placed your stake back through its designated belt-loop. You shook your head in resignation and walked over to the nearest headstone, hopping up onto the hunk of granite and facing the perimeter. 

“I know it’s you, Spike”, you addressed the tree, your arms crossing over your chest. “You can drop the stalky stuff now.”

You heard a softly muttered  _ ‘bollocks’  _ as the platinum blonde stepped out from behind the tree, his eyes cast to the ground as he walked into full view. He stopped a few feet away from you, his hands shoved in his pockets as he looked up at you warily. 

“Looks like you caught me, Slayer. Sooner than usual, too. Damned tree root stumped me up. Er, pun intended, I suppose.”

**“Were you really spying on me?”** You looked him over, your brow furrowing in confusion at his hunched stance, his shoulders braced as if he was on guard. “Again? Spike, you can’t keep following me around like this when I’m out on patrol. The other bloodsuckers are gonna start smelling you and not wanna come out to play.”

There was no malice in your voice, your warning merely playful banter. Much as you tried to deny it, the newly ensouled British baddie had begun to grow on you. He still got on your last nerve more often than not, of course, but more for the fact that you found yourself becoming closer to him than over anything he actually said or did. Hell, most of the time, he was quiet, just strolling through the graveyard a few steps behind you, simply watching your back, lending a hand in a fight if you needed it. 

Spike drifted slowly closer, until he stood barely a foot away from you, and chanced a look in your direction. You saw the timid sadness in the stormy blue of his eyes, your heart clenched at the unusual emotions that played across his face; this wasn’t the typical snarky, teasing Spike that stood before you now. This wasn’t a Spike you had encountered yet, a new-Spike. Your guard came back up a bit, your shoulders squaring, your arms uncrossing as you hopped off the tombstone and opted for leaning against it instead, the sturdiness of it at your back grounding you slightly. 

He still stared at you silently, half looking like a scared animal expecting to be kicked if he moved wrong. Inexplicably, that angered you; sure, the two of you had had your fights, what with you being a Slayer, and him a deadly killing machine, but it had been weeks since you had even so much as raised your voice at him, let alone struck a blow. What right did he have to look at you so forlornly? You’d never caused him any lasting pain, and never more than he deserved for his many transgressions. Stupid vampire, making his stupid pouty, ‘pity me’ faces, like he hadn’t fought back just as hard when you duked it out. He hadn’t even bothered to show up at your doorstep for the past week, no calls, no explanations or even a simple ‘hey Slayer, sorry, but I just don’t feel like dirt-crawling with you tonight, maybe next time, yeah?’. Stupid blonde, undead guy with his reclaimed soul, and his stupid pretty face. Wait. What? 

“Why are you even here, Spike?” You were well and truly irritated now, having worked yourself up. “I didn’t think you had time to keep skulking around graves with me anymore, made yourself pretty scarce the past few times...so why are you here now?”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately, Slayer.” He ducked his head, and you swear, if his blood were still pumping through his veins, his cheeks would have reddened. “I just thought it would’ve been best for both of us, if I stayed away from you. I…”

“You  _ what _ , Spike? What do you mean, better for both of us?” You tried to keep your voice from rising, your Slayer blood making you sound angrier than you intended, confusion and a tinge of pain clouding your judgement as you stood straighter, poking Spike in the chest in an attempt to make him look back at you. “You, what, you don’t talk to me for weeks, not even to tell me you don’t wanna tag along, and then you show up here outta nowhere, and tell me you can’t be around me? That it’s for the best? What the fuck, Spike?! Fine! So why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I, what?”

“Stay away.  **Why don’t you leave me alone?** If it’s so much better for  _ ‘us’ _ if you aren’t around me, then why are you here  _ now _ ?”

“I didn’t think you’d even care all that much that I hadn’t come around. You’ve made it quite clear on multiple occasions that you could really care less whether I come or go,  _ Slayer _ .” Spike got a bit huffy himself now as you pushed him for an explanation, your usually playfully spoken epithet falling from his lips with a biting snark, making you step back in surprise. Why were you reacting to him this way? Why did you care so much? Now, it was Spike who stepped forward, crowding you back against the headstone, his arms caging you in. “I thought staying away from you would make it better, make it fade. But it didn’t. All it did was make it worse, made me  _ feel  _ worse. Hell, it made me feel, period, that in and of itself defeated the sodding point.”

“Spike, you’re really not making any sense, and if you don’t back up in the next thirty seconds, you’ll leave me no choice but to flip you over this headstone, and then maybe hit you with it.” You were fuming now. How dare he try to spin this on you. Make you feel like it was  _ your  _ fault he’d been ignoring you. Just when you thought you were starting to become friends, when you were finally letting your guard down and opening your heart to him, he pulls this? The Slayer in you bristled at the audacity. “Back up. Now.”

“Slayer…” Spike crowded in closer, his eyes boring into yours. Oh no, not the big-something-face. You gulped and fought to steady your heart rate as he leaned in dangerously close, his nose trailing along your jaw, gentle as a breeze against your skin. “I can’t help myself with you, pet. **For some reason, I’m attracted to you.** _Drawn_ to you, and I thought I could get over it, if I just stayed away.”

“ _ Spike… _ ”

“Didn’t work, though. These past weeks’ve been torture for me. Tried to drink you away, too. Drown myself in Jack, Jose, and Jim, and nothing. Just made me think of you more, till you were all I could see, all I could smell, taste, hear. I’m falling in love with you, Slayer, and I don’t know how to stop. Please, tell me how to  _ stop _ .”

His last word cracked on a bitten-back sob and you gasped when you felt a drop of wetness on your neck. He couldn’t be...could he? William the Bloody couldn’t possibly be shedding tears, over a Slayer. You let out a soft gasp as Spike rested his forehead on your shoulder with an unnecessary, shaky, breath. 

“You can’t do this, Spike. It’s not fair. You can’t just disappear for weeks and then ambush me with this...this insane love confession.” The sting was no longer in your voice, you never could bring yourself to scold him too harshly when he got into one of these moods. Although, he’d never been in quite as deep a mood as this before. Right, new Spike.  _ Really  _ new Spike. New Spike that felt love. A Spike you never counted on ever existing. He let out a sad sniffle, was he even listening to you? “Can you at least look at me while I reprimand you? Spike?”

“Spike’s not here right now, luv. Spiky’s gone, gone off where it don’t hurt so much.” Spike raised his head from your shoulder, that cowering look back in his eyes, a stray tear clinging to his lashes. “No Spike here, Spike doesn’t like the feelings for long, so he goes. Goes and leaves poor William here. To deal with the pain, and the Slayer’s anger. Bound to be angry, she is. Doesn’t love Spike. Doesn’t love William. Why should she? Too good for us. Too pure. Not stained, like us.”

Your chest tightened in pain at the sorrow in Spike’s voice as he lamented, his face contorted in a perpetual flinch, no doubt expecting fury to rain down upon him at any moment even as he continued on. You thought he had gotten past this, retreating inside himself like this. It had been months since William had surfaced, you thought he was better now, healed. 

“Slayer doesn’t have blood of the innocent on her hands like us. Doesn’t hear them, screamin’, crying out. She could never love Spike, never love me. Been tryin’, never been quick at learning, never. But we have tried. Failed though. Can’t shake it, can’t cut it out of us. Can’t drown it, neither. So he hides, hides, hides away. Brings me out, but never to play. Never play. Only pain.”

“Sp-William, please,” you slowly raised a hand up, grimacing when he flinched back, and cupped his cheek, stilling again until his brow unfurrowed, his eyes still wary but a little less crazed. Soon enough, he let his eyes flutter shut, a soft whimper falling from his lips as he nuzzled into your palm. “Oh, William, please don’t do this to yourself. I’m not angry, okay? Not for the way you feel. I’m just...I got upset that you didn’t think you should keep me in the loop about all of this. Can you tell Spike to come back? Is that possible?”

“Won’t come, think’s you’ll hurt ‘im. Turn us away, make us leave you alone for good. Doesn’t want the pain, selfish prat. Wants me to feel it, not him.”

“No, oh, no, William. That’s not why I want to speak to Spike.” Spike’s eyes opened, meeting yours disbelievingly. You dropped your arm and reached for his hand, your fingers lacing through his. You softly stroked your thumb over his icy skin, knowing he didn’t really feel the cold, but wishing you could soothe it away just the same. “I don’t want to hurt you, I promise. No yelling, no hitting, okay? Please.”

Spike stared down at your joined hands for seconds that felt like eternity. You couldn’t fully understand why you felt so desperate to get Spike back out of his head, but you knew you couldn’t just let him keep going on like this. And you couldn’t deny that things had been changing between the two of you for quite some time now, from begrudging allies into something you didn’t really want to look at too closely, didn’t want to admit to. Still, whatever it was, it was there and you couldn’t ignore it any longer. Not now. Finally, he looked back up at you, his eyes clear and less guarded. 

“Spike?”

“Slayer...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here tonight, pet. I just missed you. I’ll go now, and we can just forget this even happened, yeah?”

Spike straightened up and turned to leave, but you tugged him back around, your Slayer strength pulling him slightly off-balance, causing him to stumble into you, inadvertently pressing you further back against the headstone. He froze, looming over you as you recovered yourself and looked up at him, your heart beating faster.

“No, Spike, don’t go. I’m not mad at you, not really. I’m just hurt that you shut me out like that, no calls or anything. I thought something was building between us, shifting. And then you just...cut me out. I thought I did something wrong, Spike.” Spike frowned in silent apology at that. “If you had just told me, that you were feeling something too, we could have spent the last few weeks figuring it out together. You’re always telling me that I don’t have to be the martyr, but neither do you. You don’t always have to try to work things out on your own. I thought we were past that stage of...whatever this is.”

You stared up at him, suddenly unsure of yourself. You watched as Spike took an unnecessary breath, his eyes soft now. The hand that still held yours gave a squeeze, lighter than you expected, as though he was being extra cautious with his strength. 

“It was a dick move, I know. I just thought if I could make these feelings go away, then I could come back to patrolling with you and things would be normal again. I never meant to hurt you, luv.”

“I believe you.” You took a steadying breath, Spike’s vampire hearing picking up the change in sound and looking at you curiously. “You wanna make it up to me? So we can put this little transgression behind us?”

“Anything you ask, pet. I don’t think I have it in me to deny you a single thing anymore, Slayer.”

“Kiss me?”

“You sure, luv? You don’t have to humor me, y’know.”

You sighed and rolled your eyes, your hand guiding his to your waist. 

“Just kiss me before I stake you.”

Spike huffed a soft laugh and pressed closer to you, free hand coming up to nudge your chin, tilting your head back as he leaned in. Slowly, he pressed his lips to yours with a hum. They were surprisingly warm and soft as they moved against yours, languid and gentle; he let you take the lead, never searching to deepen the kiss, even when you gasped quietly. Breathless, you broke the kiss, pulling back to look at him with a smile. Whatever there was between you, you definitely wanted to give it a fair chance of sorting it out. 

“That good for you, luv?”

“Oh, yeah. Can you do one more thing for me?”

“Name it, pet.”

“Walk me home? I wanna do that again, but somewhere a little less graveyard-y.”

Spike grinned back at you and took your hand again, tugging you along with him this time as he turned to leave the cemetery. 

“Your wish, my command, Slayer.”


End file.
